Hello, I'm writing to inquire about some seriously slow 3G speeds. Have been having problems with sluggishness downloading apps on my android phone (EDIT: Original Motorola Droid) from the market so me and a friend got together to do some tests. He is on AT&T and has a Nexus One android phone. We tested multiple locations around the state of SC, in every situation even though I had stronger signal strength (in each test I was between -73 and -86db signal he was between -88 and -96) he always had faster download speeds. And not just slightly faster, he obliterated my speeds. In one locaiton, I had -73db signal, he had -94db, my download speed over 5 tests averaged 40kbs, his average 1842kbs. Almost all the test results are like this the closest test was when I averaged 621kbs over 5 tests, and he averaged 1402kbs. My average over all tests (50 tests in 10 different locations in sc, 5 tests per location) was 223kbs, his was 1561kbs.

Is this the norm for verizon's 3G speeds? If so I may have to strongly consider opening an AT&T account.

EDIT: Added phone type, verizon is my service provider obviously.

Also to note, all speed testing was done using the SpeedTest.net application available in the market. We always used the Columbia, SC server for consistency.

No he didn't have wifi turned on lol, I'm smart enough to have realized if it was something simple causing a large difference like that.

And we did try a couple other servers when we first started testing but settled on Columbia for consistency with all the other tests since it was a central location. The other servers we tried when we first started all had similar results, I did not however record the data at that time to say exactly what they were.

It definitely was not just a poor route from verizon to the server, the whole thing that started this as I said in my original post was because I was noticing very sluggish speeds to begin with when downloading apps from the market and surfing the web on my phone. So it isn't just poor speed test results that I'm basing my observation of slow 3G speeds on.

I didn't know what PRL was but looked it up and found it, it shows 30058, I called *228 and did the roaming update to make sure it was up to date, and it did not change so assuming that is the most rescent version for my area.

Researching on the net some it looks like this is an Alltel PRL version. This is probably due to the fact that I was with Alltel before it merged with Verizon and have not converted to a verizon package.

I downloaded that Real Signal app, where I'm at atm my EVDO signal is -3.

I didn't know what PRL was but looked it up and found it, it shows 30058, I called *228 and did the roaming update to make sure it was up to date, and it did not change so assuming that is the most rescent version for my area.

Researching on the net some it looks like this is an Alltel PRL version. This is probably due to the fact that I was with Alltel before it merged with Verizon and have not converted to a verizon package.

I downloaded that Real Signal app, where I'm at atm my EVDO signal is -3.

Speedtest.net down results

Columbia, SC: 147kbps

Sumter, SC: 168kbps

Atlanta, GA: 236kbps

Charlotte, NC: 223kbps

Average: 193.5kbps

We found the issue. You have an Alltel PRL. I have one also, I think it is 40043. Until the area is combined you will have issues. My SID is now 21 which is a combined SID. So here my phone looks for a Verizon or Alltel tower as level one.With a Smartphone you should not have a 3xxxx PRL.

Once I leave this area and got to wherre there is not a combined area, my phone looks for an Alltel tower first, then a Verizon tower.